OT: speed limiter regs in cars

[bill.shitner]

So, you've probably all seen the news about the imminent introduction of automatic speed limit enforcement devices in vehicles. What I can't understand is why such a thing would be prioritised. Last time I looked at the figures, the number of deaths on the roads was pretty small, considering the number of vehicles on the roads. Only a subset of those deaths will be attributable to excess speed, meaning that the benefit gained for such a massive compromise of freedom is small.

It seems to be application of tech for the sake of it. Is it about creating jobs (making stuff harder to make/run and therefore more labour intensive)? Is it about Government control/snooping? Perhaps both.

Bill.

[Roger Mills]

And how are they going to recover the revenue lost from speed cameras?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Don't be naive: it's to create a market for German cars that will have it on.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Inceased car tax on old cars that dont have it fitted of course.

Dont be dim!

[bert]

In article [e-mail], [e-mail] writes

Because we are largely governed by those who shout loudest - in this case road safety campaigners. Facts and logical analysis are irrelevant.

[Jac Brown]

Problem with that line is that Ford cars already have it on.

[GB]

Volvo will be making a number of safety improvements to their cars next year, with the aim of reducing deaths of people inside their cars to nil. These improvements will involve the same sort of compromise of freedom you are complaining about, but they think it will help them sell more cars.

It's clearly safety related, and there are clearly car buyers who value that above freedom. What we don't know is which group is in the majority.

Is it about creating jobs (making stuff harder to make/run and therefore more labour intensive)? Is it about Government control/snooping? Perhaps both.

[Jethro_uk]

Most used gadget on my car.

Only grumble is it has to be manually set after starting the engine.

Can't recall a time I needed to override it.

[Andrew]

It'll make it more difficult for crims to escape from plod.

[Bob Eager]

Very useful it is too. It very rarely gets fooled, but mostly I am prepared for that.

[Max Demian]

It's immoral as it prevents you from making the moral decision to keep to the speed limit. The same way that the theological doctrine of predestination absolves you from all moral responsibility.

[Graham Harrison]

Remember, it's an EU proposal. Many of the members have much worse safety records than we do.

[Steve Walker]

I remember seeing official figures for road deaths and serious injuries a couple of years ago. Naturally a large number of them were pedestrians. The figure of (IIRC) 87% was quoted for the primary cause of accidents involving pedestrians being "pedestrian failed to look."

Surely rather than putting more and more tech into cars, making them unaffordable to buy or maintain; likely to suffer faults; and be prohibitively expensive to repair, we should spend a relatively small sum on information campaigns to get all road users to LOOK more.

We expect drivers to concentrate 100% for the whole of their journey, while pedestrians only need to concentrate for a few seconds when crossing, yet we have no laws controlling pedestrians and punish drivers for simply losing concentration for a moment.

SteveW

[Marland]

So how do you enforce laws on pedestrians? Ban them from walking for a year if they get too many points on their walking licence ?and there are a lot of people such as the young,people with medical impairments or aged related conditions who are in no fit state to consider they may be breaking a law aimed at their behaviour. Do you propose such people be kept under house arrest.

GH

[Jac Brown]

Yeah, I'd love to have it go even further and allow the advanced cruise control to use that data so it keeps at an amount over the speed limit that I specify and does that through all speed limit changes.

It very rarely gets fooled, but mostly I am

And with it using the database of speed limits except for special speed limits for events and road works etc, it shouldn?t get it wrong very often at all if those special event speed limits are visibly different to the normal ones.

Even that should be feasible with the database being updated for those special speed limits. That would require full time net access tho.

Dunno what they will do about the french speed limits that change when it rains tho.

[Jac Brown]

It does still work, just need a bit more effort when you want to exceed the speed limit to overtake or handle someone doing something stupid like accelerating when you overtake them.

[The Natural Philosopher]

How would that make a profit for anyone?

The days when chevronms knocked 40% off road casualty figures because they helped the motorist drive better are long gone.

Today its all about punishing the motorist who drives illegally, not even unsafely.

In short its typical socialist legislation.

- it doesnt fix the problem

- it can be held up by spurious 'studies' as a virtue signalling way to fix the problem

- it creates more excuses for in depth surveillance

- it dumbs down the citizen even further

- it drives sales for the globalist corporataions.

- it transfers more wealth to the globalists from ordinary people.

Whats not to like?

The first person I saw die in front of me was a pedestrian - an old lady

- who walked straight in front of a car keeping to the 30mph speed limit, as was later established in court from the skid marks and tests on the car. I attended court to give evidence at the age of 13.

Of course te death rate from horse drawn vehicles with rubbish brakes was far far higher before the motor-car came along.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I think if we stay in the EU they will be euthanased.

History...

[harry]

The EUSSR seeks to Kontrol all aspects of our lives. This is just part of the thin edge of the wedge. When we get used to this, they'll move on to other yet more intrusive things.

A complex problem, prone to go wrong. No doubt it will become part of the MOT. Just as seat belts did.

You can still die if a car hits you at 30mph.

[Andy Bennet]

Sign recognition. My Ford Focus can read all the speed limit signs and display the last read on on the dash. Very useful as a check if you've missed one. It's an easy step then to use that to auto control the top speed of the car.

I imagine all the cars fitted with autopilot systems (Nissan Leaf, Teslas, etc) already do all that anyway